Base and lid containers are typically used in the food preparation and restaurant industry to package prepared or take-out foods. However, base and lid container have a significant volume footprint and food establishments are often limited in space, particularly the area around the main cooking or serving space. Accordingly, it may be desirable to reduce storage space through the use of more convenient packaging material. Further, a food establishment using a base and a lid container may come up short when either the lid or base to complete the container is dropped or otherwise removed from the pool of bases or lids. This creates a discrepancy in the ratio of lids to bases in the container stock.
The present disclosure relates to containers and packaging. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to a container assembly that incorporates ambidextrous or balanced shell components for forming the two sides of a complete container assembly. Specifically, the present disclosure relates to a container assembly having two shell components that include substantially similar profile and may be rotated 180-degrees relative to one another and brought together to form the container assembly. In some embodiments, the shell components include a generally identical overall footprint profile. In other embodiments, the outer peripheral lip or edge area of both shell components are generally identical, while the depths can be identical or are different. In some other embodiments, three components are used to form a container assembly.
The drawings are not intended to be limiting in any way, and it is contemplated that various embodiments of the invention may be carried out in a variety of other ways, including those not necessarily depicted in the drawings. The accompanying drawings incorporated in and forming a part of the specification illustrate several aspects of the present invention, and together with the description serve to explain the principles of the invention; it being understood, however, that this invention is not limited to the precise arrangements shown.